February 28, 2012

Harris Home No. 1000 (I think)

Another company that sold mail-order homes by catalog was Harris Brothers, based in Chicago. Harris Brothers sold kit homes from 1907 to 1935, and they did not have the catchiest names for their models.


6 S. Elm, Mount Prospect















This California bungalow in the Triangle was built in 1927.  I believe it is model No. 1000 from Harris Brothers (the naming of the model changed over the years). Note the dominant chimney, curved porch, and French doors to the dining room. The roof over the porch does not extend to the chimney, though--it must have been truncated at some point--maybe because it was blocking the new taller windows.


View of the curved porch and the exposed rafters. A nice place to hang out in the summer with a glass of wine!
There were designs similar to that of the Harris No. 1000 available in house plan books. However, these copycat plans had different roof lines and different configurations for the hallway and access from the dining room. The interior of the Mount Prospect house matches the Harris No. 1000 design.



In the Harris Brothers plan for No. 1000, there is a door to the kitchen on one corner of the dining room and a pass-through to the hallway on the adjacent wall just next to the door.


It matches! Note the three windows, just like on the plan. Outside the window, you can see that the kitchen has been extended.

I'm not 100% certain this is a Harris Brothers No. 1000, but I think we can make a pretty good case for it being one. 

This house on Elm was listed by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency as one of the six most historic architectural properties in Mount Prospect. Here is a photo of the house taken during an architectural survey in the early 1970's.


The roof was still extended in the 1970's.



The original owners were Otto and Martha Freitag. Otto was a doorman for a club. Otto died in 1943 and Martha continued to live in the house until at least 1974.



Martha (Gosch) Frietag
Martha Freitag.


February 26, 2012

Sears Maplewood

1215 S. Pine, Arlington Heights.

Sears Maplewood from the 1930 Modern Homes catalog.

The Sears Maplewood is a English story-and-a-half cottage, a very common housing style in the area.

This Maplewood was built between 1930-1935. It is largely untouched after 80+ years. It is lacking the living room fireplace, but homeowners had the option to leave it out. There are no return eaves on the roofline. However, cornice returns are a feature that often gets eliminated over the years because many of them retain water. Another change is that the front door is rectangular, not arched.

That's a replacement front door, but interior doors in the house are original. Photo from Realtor site.


Photo from Realtor site.

Photo from Realtor site.


With a little TLC, this Maplewood cottage could be one of the standouts in the neighborhood.

The house was originally purchased by Ronald L. and Marie Bradley. Ronald worked as a machinist for F.J. Bradley in Arlington Heights and also served as the Elk Grove Township Highway Commissioner.



February 20, 2012

Sears Dover

216 S. Hi-Lusi, Mount Prospect

Sears Dover.



This housing style is very common in the Chicago area and sometimes it can be difficult to determine whether a house is a Sears Dover, a similar house from another kit house manufacturer, or just a copycat.

This Dover has a clipped gable roof. Many of the copycats do not have the same roofline. The side windows perfectly match those of the Dover in the catalog. There is a bellcast roof over the front door that goes just under the front window. The light is in the exact same position over the front door, and the front door itself was one of the standard styles available from Sears at the time.

The one obvious difference from the catalog picture is that our Dover lacks the front chimney, which means the house did not come with a fireplace originally. The other difference is the shed dormer, but this could have been added to the house during a later renovation.
The vestibule. Photo from Realtor site.

The Dover does not have the front chimney. However, it does have a  gas fireplace in the living room that was added after the original build. Photo from Realtor site.

The door on the left leads to a small hallway. Photo from Realtor site.


The swinging door leads to the kitchen. Photo from Realtor site.


Photo from Realtor site.


All original woodwork. Photo from Realtor site.

 
Photo from Realtor site.


Photo from Realtor site.



The windows on the left are contained in the dormer in the front of the house. Photo from Realtor site.



The Dover as delivered came with a dormer in the back with two windows. The large window overlooks the stairway and the small window is in a bathroom. Photo from Realtor site.




This Sears Dover was built in the spring of 1929 by the general contracting firm Geo. L. Parker & Son. Ira and Olive Hackmeister were the original owners. 






February 6, 2012

A Tragically Disfigured Montgomery Ward Mail-Order Home

I was reading a book on the history of Arlington Heights called "Chronicle of a Prairie Town" which was commissioned by the local historical society. In it, I was surprised to see the address of a confirmed Montgomery Ward catalog home in the village that had been "extensively remodeled". I had recently driven down that particular block because there is a Sears home on it as well as a catalog home from Gordon-Van Tine. How could I have missed this house?

So I did a drive-by and this is what I saw.


I will withhold the address but will say that the home is in south Arlington Heights.

The house was built around 1930 and at some point it underwent an insensitive remodeling. I cannot even speculate what Wardway model it might have been originally since the house has been completely disfigured.

This is an authenticated Wardway house. The original owners foreclosed and Montgomery Ward owned the property in 1940, according to Cook County records.

I can't understand how someone could take a cute kit home and turn it into this. However, this example shows how important it is that people are made aware of kit homes in our area and how special they are. These homes should be treasured and preserved.

What is interesting is that the front door might give a clue to the house's origin as a Wardway home. Often the Wardway models had "mock" arched doors. That is, the door was rectangular but had a wooden semicircle placed above it to give the appearance of an arched door. You can see this setup with the house's current door.


Here is a comparison of the mock arched door on a Wardway house and the house in Arlington Heights. They certainly look similar.